In a press release, the Spotify platform announces the increase in the price of its Premium subscription in France.
“We did everything to avoid reaching this point, unfortunately the French government decided otherwise” and French subscribers will have to pay more. In a press release published this Thursday morning, the streaming listening platform Spotify announced an increase in its premium subscription prices, without giving, for the moment, either a figure or a date. “Soon, our Spotify Premium subscribers in France will experience a price increase due to additional costs on music streaming services, imposed by the French government as part of the “CNM tax”, we can read in the document, published on social networks.
This CNM tax was announced by the government last December. Feared by the platforms, it must be used to finance aid to the National Music Center. “This is a public body which commissions studies on the French music industry and provides financial subsidies to record companies and the live entertainment industry,” Spotify specifies in its press release, explaining that “the government French government has decided that music streaming services will now have to pay a new tax to finance this center.”
And for Spotify to express a doubt: that “this tax does not go directly to artists, nor has a tangible return visible to fans.” In its press release, the streaming giant explains that this tax will bring in “15 million euros.” But given the amount to pay, it is forced to increase the price of its Premium subscription, as explained in its press release. Subscribers “will now pay the highest plan in the European Union. Spotify is increasing its prices in France to offset these new costs.” Details of the amount of this increase will be communicated soon.
Last December, upon the government’s announcement of the upcoming implementation of this law, Director General Antoine Monin had already denounced a “monumental strategic error”, announcing a divestment of its platform in France and withdrawing its support from several festivals like the Francofolies of La Rochelle or the Printemps de Bourges.
As soon as Spotify’s press release was released, criticism was heard on social networks, where many subscribers were outraged by such a decision. The platform is regularly singled out, in particular for not paying artists enough. It is now for its decision to make its subscribers pay this tax wanted by the government to finance the CNM, a body created to support the music industry and its actors, as the CNC can do for cinema.
